Yale University Hit by Sexual Harassment Row
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: As the esteemed Ivy League university that taught five US presidents, 18 Nobel laureates and countless captains of industry, Yale has one of the loftiest names in education.

But the £25,000-a-year alma mater of Bill Clinton and both George Bushes has been plunged into a sexual harassment scandal that threatens to drag its reputation through the mud.

The US government has launched an investigation into a complaint by 16 students at the Connecticut college. They allege a string of serious assaults and rampages by gangs of men that went unpunished.

Yale's management has allowed the cultivation of a "sexually hostile environment", in which misogyny flourishes and sexual attacks on young women are frequent, they claim.

Now the university's £300 million-a-year public funding could be in jeopardy if the Obama administration finds it broke a law dictating everyone must have equal access to education.

The Yale complaint's most serious charges – concerning the sexual assaults of several girls – have not been made public to protect the victims' identities.

The 26-page dossier also discloses many other unpleasant incidents on campus. Several have dragged the college's boozy and laddish fraternities into the spotlight. » | Jon Swaine, New York | Friday, April 08, 2011

Committed to Free Expression? What Nonsense
TIMES ONLINE: Yale has acted cravenly over images of Muhammad

A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in September 2005. This seemingly innocuous decision preceded worldwide protests, death threats, trade boycotts and attacks on Danish embassies.

An outstanding scholarly account of these events is published this week, entitled The Cartoons that Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, a Danish academic in the US. Klausen dissects the motives of the main actors and illuminates debates over free speech and the place of religion in Western societies. It’s a murky business, by which, she says, “protests developed from small-scale local demonstrations to global uproar only to subside without a proper conclusion”.

Yet while there has been no conclusion, there has been change and decay. The controversy spurred an argument that would defend the principle of free speech while deploring the failure to exercise it sensitively. “We believe freedom of the press entails responsibility and discretion, and should respect the beliefs and tenets of all religions,” declared the United Nations after Danish diplomatic missions were torched.

That principle is moderate, balanced and pernicious. The idea that people’s beliefs, merely by being deeply held, merit respect is grotesque. A constitutional society upholds freedom of speech and thought: it has no interest in its citizens’ feelings. If it sought to protect sensibilities, there would be no limit to the abridgements of freedom that the principle would justify. >>> Oliver Kamm | Monday, September 28, 2009

Yale University Press Accused of Cowardice over Muhammad Cartoons
Cartoons of prophet Muhammad: Google Images
Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me the pleasure of bringing to you the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, cartoons which the ***** at Yale University Press were too cowardly to bring you. Enjoy! – ©Mark

TIMES ONLINE: Yale University Press was accused of cowardice and censorship yesterday after deciding not to reproduce cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in an academic book for fear of violent reprisals.

This year Yale will publish a scholarly work about reactions to the cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper in 2005, which sparked protests around the world.

But readers will not see the 12 cartoons that are the subject of the book, including one showing Muhammad with a turban like a bomb. In fact, they will not get to see any images of the prophet at all, not even a 19th-century sketch by Gustave Doré.

Yale has decided to publish The Cartoons that Shook the World, by Jytte Klausen, without any likenesses of the Prophet but the howls of protest are all the louder for the fact that there have not been any threats of violence related to the book.

"‘We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands’. That is effectively the new policy position at Yale University Press,” Cary Nelson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, wrote in an open letter.

Yale took its decision to self-censor after consulting two dozen experts, including counter-terrorism specialists and the highest-ranking Muslim official at the UN.

Yale says that the experts concluded that the book should omit the 12 Danish cartoons but also all illustrations of the Prophet. [sic] including an Ottoman print, a children’s book illustration and the Dore sketch, which portrays Muhammad being tormented in hell in a scene from Dante’s Inferno that has also inspired Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dali. >>> James Bone in New York | Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Blair at His Banal Best!
Excuse me, Herr Professor! How many millions are you being paid for these banalities? If you didn’t already know it, you are teaching us nothing we didn’t already know! - ©Mark

Photo of Tony Blair courtesy of The Sunday Express
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair said religious faith could be a double-edged sword, inspiring some people to do harm, but also having the potential to ease conflicts.

Mr Blair, speaking to students and staff at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, also said the US financial crisis affecting worldwide markets showed "the interconnectedness of the world" which underscored the need to work together on other economic problems. 



Mr Blair visited New Haven to address Yale students in a lecture that kicked off the three-year Faith and Globalisation Initiative, a collaboration of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and Yale's Divinity School and School of Management. Religion Can Harm or heal – Blair >>> | September 21, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

What Credentials Does Blair Have to Teach Religion at Yale?
Photo of Tony Blair courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: Not content with trying to bring peace to the Middle East - as well as advising an insurance company on the risks of climate change, a bank on crisis management and Rwanda on good governance - Tony Blair is to add another job to his portfolio: teaching God and politics at one of America's most prestigious universities.

Yale, the Ivy League alma mater of his good friend George Bush, confirmed yesterday that the former prime minister is to join the schools of management and divinity at the campus in New Haven, Connecticut, in the autumn. He will teach a course on faith and globalisation, looking at religion in the modern world.

This will also be the theme of his Faith Foundation, which he is to launch in London before his Yale commitment starts. It is intended to promote understanding between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Peace broker, bank adviser and lecturer, now Blair plans to teach religion at Yale: · Ex-PM to deliver course in faith and globalisation
· Aides express concern at ever-increasing workload >>> By Ewan MacAskill

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)